Two of you wrote in last week advising me of the dangers of giving Mason chew toys with squeakers in them because they're a choking hazard. Chay Duggan told me to remove the squeakers with a screwdriver. Good idea. Wanted to pass that along in case any of you decided to start shopping for your teething baby in the doggy toy department, too.

Well, it took 5 of us 11 hours, but it's finally done. The attic is clean. Yea! I can't BELIEVE how much stuff we have accumulated over the past 5 years (that's the last time we cleaned it out). Next? The garage! Whoo hoo!! (The children aren't quite as excited as I am about all this Spring cleaning.)

I planted my seedlings on Sunday night. Max was very excited as he planted his, too. He's growing cucumbers and green beans this year (because those are his favorite vegetables) and corn and sunflowers (because those plants grow huge, and they're fun to reap). After everyone else went to bed that night, I turned on a gardening show (don'tcha just love HGTV?) and sat down with my notebook to catalog my "crop." Now, I'm no green thumb, far from it, but I do love gardening! We have to start our seedlings indoors here because you're not supposed to plant outdoors this far north until after Memorial Day. And, for things that have a longer growing period, you might never get to eat the fruits of your labor because it'll freeze again before they're done.

Anyway, I planted different varieties of veggies and herbs, everything from onions and sugar snap peas (my favorite) to dill and oregano. I made notes about germination time, when I needed to transplant them, which ones can't be transplanted (the Thumbelina carrots will be so cute and you can grow them in containers because they only grow to the size of golfballs), time to reap, etc. I was pretty stunned when, while taking notes, when I realized that some of the things I planted, which will grow too big for container gardening, will be ready to eat before Memorial Day. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do, and yes, I'm laughing at myself, too. In wonder if Richard will let me fill up some baby swimming pools with dirt and keep them in the mudroom? Ha! I'll definitely keep you apprised of my progress. Today, I'm going to ask Matt and Zach to hang up my growing light in there.

This week's Maxism:
After a sunny, gorgeous weekend of temps in the 50's, it started to snow on Monday afternoon. Poor Max was sitting with is nose pressed against the window. I thought he was going to start crying when he looked up, and loudly said, "Please, God! Send summer!"

AND

Ali was in the upstairs bathroom, working with the heavy-duty, lemon-scented toilet cleaner. Max came upstairs, sniffed deeply, and said, "Mmmm! I smell poison!"